SHUCH036_RAD.JPG Profile on Erika Shuch, who is shown working with her dancers at the Intersection on Valencia St. in San Francisco. The name of the dance they're working on is "one window." Photo taken on 3/21/05, in San Francisco, CA.
By Katy Raddatz / The San Francisco Chronicle Erika Shuch creates dances with startling, surprising results. MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Sitting by the second-floor gallery window at Intersection for the Arts on a recent Friday afternoon, Kevin Chen announces matter-of-factly that after 40 years, and several locations around the city, and finding countless ways to make art interact with the challenges of the real world, "Intersection is no longer alternative."

Back in the '60s, when the organization was created by anti-war activists and socially conscious churches, creating art as a way to protest war or to demonstrate the need for racial, social and economic parity -- especially creating art through community-based collaboration -- was considered alternative, not mainstream. Four decades later, as the organization of eight employees and resident artists looks to the future, it has come to an institutional realization that is has become an accepted player in the cultural mainstream of San Francisco.

But for Chen, Executive Director Deborah Cullinan and the others like actor Sean San Jose, choreographer Erika Shuch and jazz musician Marcus Shelby who are looking to take the organization into the immediate future, that's not such a bad thing, because it gives Intersection a solid platform to build on.

"We essentially want to keep on doing what we're doing, but doing it even better," says Cullinan, a tiny dynamo with cabernet-colored hair who has become a force in community and city affairs with a reputation as a skilled political negotiator and as a smiling but unyielding advocate for the arts.

Yes, funding is always an issue and some might wonder if the organization's space in a former furniture store on Valencia is really all that amenable to creating great art. At times, Cullinan and others have wished they could convince their landlord to sell them the building, but they accept the fact he doesn't want to sell and that he loves having Intersection as tenants.

In the meantime, you won't find anyone at Intersection bemoaning the special limitations at their rented digs at 446 Valencia. In fact, the building's former life as a furniture store is actually respected, if not celebrated. As an example, Cullinan proudly points to where new mattresses were once stacked when furniture instead of art with social purpose was sold out of the three-story building.

The artists have created work that focuses on how events and human history are shaped by setting, by buildings and streets and whole neighborhoods, by walls and plaster, floors and glass. In fact, Hung has designed a way to make the Intersection building's "site memory" a part of the building by creating sound installations to be embedded in the walls themselves, with the sound capturing ambient moments of the processes going on at Intersection throughout the day.

At any given time, Intersection is likely to be readying a new play developed especially for its resident theater company, Campo Santo, planning its two monthly Jazz at Intersection programs, installing a new exhibit in the gallery and holding poetry or prose readings.

"There is so much life here," Cullinan says, noting that three new plays will open at Intersection this month.

All of that and more will continue in the future, Cullinan says, adding that she and the other Intersection honchos would like to expand its outreach programs to take the organization's programs and performances into public schools in particular. She sees the 40th anniversary as a way of helping the community learn more about Intersection's first four decades to expand into the next four. That's especially important for an organization whose audience is generally young -- in their 20s and 30s -- and very diverse.

The mission of Intersection, to celebrate community itself through the act of artistic collaboration, will, of course, continue, especially through the Hybrid Project. If there is one jewel in Intersection's multigemmed crown, it's probably the Hybrid Project, which enables artists from various disciplines to work together on pieces that draw from each of them.

As part of the 40th anniversary celebration, Intersection will host panels on June 24 and 25 to talk about collaboration and how that process can lead to a whole that is often greater than the sum of its considerable parts. Among the participants will be playwright Ntozake Shange, choreographers Robert Moses and Alonzo King, writer Jessica Hagedorn and others.

"It always feels like we're just starting," Cullinan says, and, as usual, there's not a trace of weariness in her voice. The feeling of constant new beginnings is what Intersection is all about, she says.

Over the past four decades, many artists in many fields have either gotten a significant boost from Intersection at the beginning of their careers, or found the organization a place to try new things, spread different wings, at later points in their careers. For many, the association with Intersection remains vivid long after they've moved on.

One of those artists is well known to Bay Area audiences and just won a Tony award as best actor in a play earlier this month. His name is Bill Irwin. Still in thrall over his Tony, Irwin called this week to talk about what his association with Intersection meant to him at the time, and how it still impacts what he does as an artist:

Irwin remembered that it was George Coates who first invited him to perform at Intersection.

"It must have been 1979 to 1980," he says. "He had seen a performance of 'Still/Not Quite' at Margaret Jenkins' studio -- a large, beautiful dance space -- and the piece really used that space. It had lots of circular running in it.

"But the Intersection space was very particular, with a long, narrow aspect. I told him, 'I can't do that piece, but I've got an idea.' The notion of a guy waking up in bed in a narrow bedroom space, the notion of being asleep and being awakened by phantoms, became the underpinning for further shows: 'Murdoch,' 'The Regard of Flight,' 'Circa.'

"Over the last year, I've looked at old video of Intersection performances," he says. "When I was playwright in residence at the Signature Theatre in New York in 2003-2004, I was surprised by how snappy the ideas were in those pieces with Michael O'Connor and Doug Skinner and me."

In an interview last week, Chen talked about how important it is for Intersection to make itself immune from "institutional amnesia," forgetting what has gone before. For people like Irwin and countless others who have made art at Intersection, that seems unlikely.

Intersection celebrates 40 years

Intersection for the Arts will mark its 40th anniversary with numerous events, including:

Hybrid Evolving: Panel on the progression of hybrid performance, interdisciplinary art and art as activism. Each evening will conclude with the premiere of Intersection's Hybrid Project 1965/2005, featuring new collaborative work by an array of young artists. 8 p.m. June 24 and 25, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. Tickets: $25-$40 sliding scale. (415) 978-2787 or www.ybca.org.

Blueprints: Intersection's 40th Anniversary Exhibition: New work by Conrad Atkinson, Claudia Bernardi, Carolyn Ryder Cooley, Su-Chen Hung, Stephanie Johnson, Kush, Julio Morales, Jos Sances, Tracey Snelling, Geddes Ulinskas and Stephanie Wong that speaks to the notion that history is charged and lodged in physical material and in the earth, and in the very walls, floors, streets and crevices of the buildings and neighborhoods that Intersection has inhabited over the years. Hours: Tuesday by appointment; Wednesday-Saturday. Free.